RE: Could someone explain this for me?

RE: Could someone explain this for me? (Full Version)

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Gil R. -> RE: Could someone explain this for me? (1/10/2007 1:38:04 AM)
quote: ORIGINAL: Berkut Here are the Southern Staff ratings, Command - Logistics: Army: Superb - Great 1st Corps: Excellent - Good 1st Div: Good - Good 2nd Div: Great - Great 3rd Div: Normal - Good 2nd Corps: Great - Good 4th Div: Great - Fair 5th Div: Great - Great 6th Div: Great - Good Now lets look at the Army of Virgina (named as such because it at one time took over a good chunk of Virginia while we danced last year): Army: Poor - Fair 1st Corps: Poor - Fair 1st Div: Normal - Fair 2nd Div: Fair - Poor 3rd Div: Fair - Poor 2nd Corps: Fair - Normal 4th Div: Poor - Normal 5th Div: Fair - Normal 3rd Corps: Fair - Normal 6th Div: Good - Normal 7th Div: Fair - Normal Now, both of these armies have been doing the exact same thing for the last couple years - namely, not fighting. How is that that the South has this astounding army staff from top to bottom? While the Northern Armies staff are all mediocre, at best? This is in 1863 - not the beginning of the war by any means. Do you remember what ratings the two armies had at the start of the game? Might the CSA army container have started Superb-Great? Army containers ONLY improve through fighting, and you say the army wasn't fighting. If it is true that the army engaged in no battles over two years AND started at less than Superb-Great then we would have a problem. But if you lucked out and got such a good container to start with, then everything you describe is perfectly normal: remember, bigger containers train smaller containers within them, so an army with Superb-Great over time will train every container inside to be better, which is why the CSA's smaller containers were also so good, and why the USA's weren't.

Gil R. -> RE: Could someone explain this for me? (1/10/2007 1:41:12 AM)
quote: ORIGINAL: Berkut Yeah, once I was stuck in Rappahanock, that is exactly what I did, to no avail. The nasty Rebs caught me anyway. Which was to be expected, what with their Superb Command Staffs! Command staffs for containers have nothing to do with whether they intercept enemy containers that are trying to avoid them.

chris0827 -> RE: Could someone explain this for me? (1/10/2007 1:43:59 AM)
quote: ORIGINAL: Gil R. quote: ORIGINAL: Berkut Yeah, the Army of the Potomac was destroyed in the next turn when it was pursued into Rappahanock and could not retreat. So much for the hours and hours spent on that PBEM game. This is very frustrating - having a game ended in this manner really makes it hard to fire up another one. Why a army would retreat into a province that is out of supply rather than just retreating back into Maryland is beyond me. I did control Rappahanock at the time though. We're considering a change -- suggested by Hard Sarge, I believe -- that would enable armies that lose battles in coastal provinces from which they have no escape by land to escape to the nearest friendly port, as if they had been evacuated a la Dunkirk. In such cases, they would take HEAVY casualties, so armies might escape, but lose a good deal of strength. (And I just came up with the idea that in such evacuations armies would lose any non-improves artillery, as yet another penalty.) I assume people like this idea? The penalty is too high. If the Union failed to take a fort or city on the southern coast they either retreated to their base or boarded their transports. There was never anything like the evacuation of Dunkirk. A big morale hit yes but heavy losses just because they retreated no.

Gil R. -> RE: Could someone explain this for me? (1/10/2007 2:09:45 AM)
Are you saying there couldn't have been a Dunkirk-like evacuation, had the circumstances forced it?

chris0827 -> RE: Could someone explain this for me? (1/10/2007 2:13:17 AM)
quote: ORIGINAL: Gil R. Are you saying there couldn't have been a Dunkirk-like evacuation, had the circumstances forced it? Pretty much. There was nothing close to it in the civil war.

Gil R. -> RE: Could someone explain this for me? (1/10/2007 2:52:25 AM)
Are you saying there COULDN'T have been a Dunkirk-like evacuation, had the circumstances forced it?

chris0827 -> RE: Could someone explain this for me? (1/10/2007 3:05:08 AM)
quote: ORIGINAL: Gil R. Are you saying there COULDN'T have been a Dunkirk-like evacuation, had the circumstances forced it? Can you show me a single incident from the civil war that comes close to Dunkirk? Why would you use a campaign from a war 80 years later to model the american civil war? The circumstances of Dunkirk are nothing like the amphibious operations of the Civil War. Dunkirk wasn't a failed amphibious invasion. Most of the men at dunkirk were saved. You want heavy union losses. A large percentage of the losses at Dunkirk were caused by air attack, something not available in the civil war though I'm surprised there aren't rules for dropping bombs from balloons. Read a little about the Union coastal attacks before you start comparing them to Dunkirk.

General Quarters -> RE: Could someone explain this for me? (1/10/2007 5:48:23 AM)
chris' logic seems to be: if it didn't happen, it couldn't happen. I don't think there were any Dunkirk-style rescues that were attempted and failed. So, by the same logic, if they never failed, they couldn't fail, which is equivalent to saying they could have happened after all.

Queeg -> RE: Could someone explain this for me? (1/10/2007 5:56:24 AM)
The evacuation issue seems to me to depend on how the army got into that fix. If by failed amphibious assault - they sail in, get off, fight, fail, climb back aboard - then perhaps it makes some sense, with some penalties. But if an army marches itself into an isolated coastal province and gets whipped, it ought to essentially vanish. In game terms, it's the difference between withdrawing to the transports that brought you there and withdrawing to abstracted transports that aren't really there. The latter ought to be possible, if at all, only with very heavy loss. I don't mind a rule that compromises the two for the sake of simplicity, I guess, but I would favor heavy losses in the compromise rule.

chris0827 -> RE: Could someone explain this for me? (1/10/2007 6:28:10 AM)
quote: ORIGINAL: General Quarters chris' logic seems to be: if it didn't happen, it couldn't happen. I don't think there were any Dunkirk-style rescues that were attempted and failed. So, by the same logic, if they never failed, they couldn't fail, which is equivalent to saying they could have happened after all. I'm still waiting to hear of a civil war situation similar to Dunkirk. World War II has plenty but this isn't a WWII game. How would the confederates have forced such an evacuation? Can you imagine what the guns of a union fleet would've done to confederate troops out in the open? It would've made Pickett's charge look like a picnic. How about studying what did happen when Union forces failed in an attack on southern ports instead of using dunkirk as a model.

Gil R. -> RE: Could someone explain this for me? (1/10/2007 6:39:51 AM)
Dunkirk is not a model. It's an analogy. The point is, it should have been possible for a defeated Union army to retreat to the coast and hold off the enemy long enough to round up some ships or call them in, and evacuate at least part of the force. In recognition of Queeg's point, we're considering having part of this rule require that there be a friendly fleet within 1 or 2 sea zones, in which case it would be completely plausible.

Mike Scholl -> RE: Could someone explain this for me? (1/10/2007 8:55:30 AM)
quote: ORIGINAL: Gil R. We're considering a change -- suggested by Hard Sarge, I believe -- that would enable armies that lose battles in coastal provinces from which they have no escape by land to escape to the nearest friendly port, as if they had been evacuated a la Dunkirk. In such cases, they would take HEAVY casualties, so armies might escape, but lose a good deal of strength. (And I just came up with the idea that in such evacuations armies would lose any non-improves artillery, as yet another penalty.) I assume people like this idea? The problem with this is "What Dunkirk's" are you talking about? The system just doesn't deal well with the kind of activities that occurred along the South's coasts. They were more on the order of attacks on ports and forts without the conquest of the inner regions of the area...., designed to "cut off" Southern blockade runners rather than conquer large swaths of territory. The Penninsula was different because the Union always had a firm base at Fortress Monroe to "cover" landings and such. And New Orleans was a case of "running the forts" (which cut them off and forced their abandonment) and siezing the port (which wasn't well garrisoned). At that point the Union had a solid base for expansion there as well. The South never had a real "navy" to dispute such control, so once the forts were gone the Yankees were home free. As the system can't deal with the actual situation, the above might be a decent compromise---IF you leave out the "HEAVY" casualties nonsense. The South had no Luftwaffe or long-ranged artillery to contest a withdrawal under the massive guns of the Union Navy..., and would be more than happy just to see the Yankee's "go home" without trying to storm the beaches.

Jonathan Palfrey -> RE: Could someone explain this for me? (1/10/2007 9:00:08 AM)
If the troops were brought there by ship, it should be possible for them to get back on the ships that brought them. The question is how many losses they should take in doing so. My guess is, few if any. Civil War armies didn't have a good record of organizing pursuits, and indeed naval guns could have provided support. I think the Confederates would have just let them get away. In that hypothetical situation. We are assuming, though, that the ships hung around waiting to take part in a possible evacuation. If they deposited the troops and then returned to base, as they may well have done, then sorry, no evacuation. If the troops weren't brought there by ship, it becomes much more problematical and I doubt that it should be allowed. Without radio, communication would be a problem, and would any passing ships have capacity for large numbers of troops?

Jonathan Palfrey -> RE: Could someone explain this for me? (1/10/2007 9:50:05 AM)
Of course, given enough time, the Union could have organized an evacuation from any port. But I suppose it would have taken weeks to organize. For an emergency evacuation within a day or two, they'd have been limited to whatever ships happened to be in port (or a short distance offshore) at the time.

Twotribes -> RE: Could someone explain this for me? (1/10/2007 10:29:20 AM)
Missing the point though. No large Union Army ( or Confederate one) was ever destroyed in battle. A large Union Army without a supply line on land WOULD be supported by sea, plain and simple. And it wouldnt take a radio to arrange this. Higher command would know within a day or 2 that its army, corps or what ever had been cut off from a land supply route. At this point seaborne operations would commence. I would suggest rather than force a retreat in this case that the Union force be allowed to remain in the Province. Make the Union player organize a fleet to withdraw it if he wants. penalize the force on the supply front. Allow naval resupply within some reasonable limit. The army would, rather than melting away from a single attack require the presence and continued assault by enemy forces. This should apply to Corps and Armies, but a single Division could be destroyed if the enemy force was sufficiently sized. So if the Union fails to organize a rescue fleet eventually the Army would be destroyed. Rather than an instant loss because of a single battle. This would require that anyone with half a brain contemplating seaborne operations ( or finding their forces being hemmed into the coast) ensuring that if they have a navy they provide some of it to cover and evacuate if neccassary. I would suggest that a province like Rappahank in Northern Virginia be given a capablity for a player that controls Fort Monroe and Annapolis province to move a set number of brigades every turn between the two locations.

christof139 -> RE: Could someone explain this for me? (1/10/2007 12:07:39 PM)
Sounds good to me. Makes a lot of historical sense. The only Union units that were destoyed and captured after landing were smaller raiding parties maybe up to battalion or regimental size. Union raiding Brigades could be turned back, but none were destroyed and/or captured after landing or operating from an established base in Southern coastal territory. The repuls of the attempted Union landing and assault at Sabine Pass also can't be considered as the Union troops never landed. Chris

Mike Scholl -> RE: Could someone explain this for me? (1/10/2007 4:29:47 PM)
"Do you remember what ratings the two armies had at the start of the game? Might the CSA army container have started Superb-Great? Army containers ONLY improve through fighting, and you say the army wasn't fighting. If it is true that the army engaged in no battles over two years AND started at less than Superb-Great then we would have a problem. But if you lucked out and got such a good container to start with, then everything you describe is perfectly normal: remember, bigger containers train smaller containers within them, so an army with Superb-Great over time will train every container inside to be better, which is why the CSA's smaller containers were also so good, and why the USA's weren't. " Gil. There simply shouldn't be this much variation available in the "staff ratings" for either side. No-one in North America had ANY experiance in handling forces as large as those raised for the Civil War, so all the "Staffs" raised for either side would be pretty green at the kind of challanges they were facing. And the "logistics staff" would be getting practice from day one (armies eat and must be clothed and armed even when they aren't fighting), so both should be fairly efficient by the Spring of '62 unless their army has totally "wasted away". I know from 20-odd Union starts that the North's "staff ratings" are generally always lousy..., perhaps one of the players with a lot of experiance on the Confederate Side can comment on the "normal ratings" for thier containers? I would suspect that for no reason whatsoever they arrive with better ratings, but I do not know that to be the case. Having a great leader does not provide a great Staff..., or Lee's Special Order No. 191 would never have fallen into McClellan's hands.

Jonathan Palfrey -> RE: Could someone explain this for me? (1/10/2007 4:34:02 PM)
OK, fair enough. Good point.

Berkut -> RE: Could someone explain this for me? (1/10/2007 4:38:17 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: Gil R. quote: ORIGINAL: Berkut Here are the Southern Staff ratings, Command - Logistics: Army: Superb - Great 1st Corps: Excellent - Good 1st Div: Good - Good 2nd Div: Great - Great 3rd Div: Normal - Good 2nd Corps: Great - Good 4th Div: Great - Fair 5th Div: Great - Great 6th Div: Great - Good Now lets look at the Army of Virgina (named as such because it at one time took over a good chunk of Virginia while we danced last year): Army: Poor - Fair 1st Corps: Poor - Fair 1st Div: Normal - Fair 2nd Div: Fair - Poor 3rd Div: Fair - Poor 2nd Corps: Fair - Normal 4th Div: Poor - Normal 5th Div: Fair - Normal 3rd Corps: Fair - Normal 6th Div: Good - Normal 7th Div: Fair - Normal Now, both of these armies have been doing the exact same thing for the last couple years - namely, not fighting. How is that that the South has this astounding army staff from top to bottom? While the Northern Armies staff are all mediocre, at best? This is in 1863 - not the beginning of the war by any means. Do you remember what ratings the two armies had at the start of the game? Might the CSA army container have started Superb-Great? Army containers ONLY improve through fighting, and you say the army wasn't fighting. If it is true that the army engaged in no battles over two years AND started at less than Superb-Great then we would have a problem. But if you lucked out and got such a good container to start with, then everything you describe is perfectly normal: remember, bigger containers train smaller containers within them, so an army with Superb-Great over time will train every container inside to be better, which is why the CSA's smaller containers were also so good, and why the USA's weren't. Well, the Southern Army wasn't mine, so I do not know what it started at - Habbaku could answer that if he remembers. I would argue that if this is how it is supposed to work, it should be changed. It should not be possible for luck to play such a dominating role in the game, of for no other reason than it makes for a poor game. It was the July '61 scenario, so of course the South didn't even start with an Army, IIRC. If the ability of an Army container to train up every single sub-container to ridiculously high levels is in the game, then it should not be possible for an Army contianer to start that high, or even really get that high at all. Having an entire Army with 8+ staff ratings is just ridiculous...especially one that has not been fighting.

Berkut -> RE: Could someone explain this for me? (1/10/2007 4:40:27 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: Gil R. Are you saying there couldn't have been a Dunkirk-like evacuation, had the circumstances forced it? I don't think there could have been a Dunkirk like evacutation to the extent that the Germans had the opportunity to wipe out that evacuation. The only way I could imagine a Southern Army serisouly impeding a Northern evacuation would be if it managed to get betweenthe Northern Army and the coast to begin with...in which case the Northern Army is probably no longer cut off from a land supply route! Civil War era armies simply did not have the mobility to effectively encircle one another, IMO.

Berkut -> RE: Could someone explain this for me? (1/10/2007 4:41:44 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: General Quarters chris' logic seems to be: if it didn't happen, it couldn't happen. I don't think there were any Dunkirk-style rescues that were attempted and failed. So, by the same logic, if they never failed, they couldn't fail, which is equivalent to saying they could have happened after all. No, his logic is that if it did not happen, the onus is on someone saying that it could happen to show that it could, and explaing why it didn't. Which isn't impossible, btw. Plenty of things did not happen that could happen. You certainly cannot start from the assumption that anything that didn't happen COULD happen though, that is obviously not productive.

Gil R. -> RE: Could someone explain this for me? (1/10/2007 8:16:08 PM)
Regarding the lower Union logistics ratings for new containers, we're considering a change, so that the Union and CSA will have comparable logistics ratings, though we'll still give a boost to the CSA's command ratings. We also are considering making it so that new containers can never have a rating higher than, say, "Good," so that higher ratings will have to be earned through combat or training. As for Dunkirk: In one of the rare moments when I will allow my cool to slip a little on this forum, I will state, "Sheesh! Can't some of you figure out that by an analogy to Dunkirk I simply was referring to soldiers getting on boats and sailing back to safety, and that's ALL I meant?"

chris0827 -> RE: Could someone explain this for me? (1/10/2007 8:23:13 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: Gil R. Regarding the lower Union logistics ratings for new containers, we're considering a change, so that the Union and CSA will have comparable logistics ratings, though we'll still give a boost to the CSA's command ratings. We also are considering making it so that new containers can never have a rating higher than, say, "Good," so that higher ratings will have to be earned through combat or training. As for Dunkirk: In one of the rare moments when I will allow my cool to slip a little on this forum, I will state, "Sheesh! Can't some of you figure out that by an analogy to Dunkirk I simply was referring to soldiers getting on boats and sailing back to safety, and that's ALL I meant?" It's not the getting on boats and sailing back to safety part that bothered us. It's the heavy losses part.

Berkut -> RE: Could someone explain this for me? (1/10/2007 8:29:52 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: Gil R. Regarding the lower Union logistics ratings for new containers, we're considering a change, so that the Union and CSA will have comparable logistics ratings, though we'll still give a boost to the CSA's command ratings. We also are considering making it so that new containers can never have a rating higher than, say, "Good," so that higher ratings will have to be earned through combat or training. Needless to say, I think these are both excellent ideas. Do container ratings ahve ANYTHING to do with unit ratings or quality or training? I would also say that units should not be able to increase their ratings above average except via combat. The way I see it, training is how you go from poor to average, or maybe a little above average. Combat is how you get beyond that.

Gil R. -> RE: Could someone explain this for me? (1/10/2007 9:25:25 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: Berkut Do container ratings ahve ANYTHING to do with unit ratings or quality or training? No. They affect performance in combat, supply levels, etc., but no direct impact on levels of quality, etc. I would also say that units should not be able to increase their ratings above average except via combat. What do you mean by unit "ratings"? The term "rating" only applies to containers. If you mean "Quality," then currently battle is the only way (though some have suggested that certain generals should be able to raise the quality of units under them, and this is being considered). The way I see it, training is how you go from poor to average, or maybe a little above average. Combat is how you get beyond that.

Berkut -> RE: Could someone explain this for me? (1/10/2007 10:10:00 PM)
Sorry Gil, I got my terms mixed up - that should have said I would also say that containers should not be able to increase their ratings above average except via combat.

Gil R. -> RE: Could someone explain this for me? (1/10/2007 10:19:19 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: Berkut Sorry Gil, I got my terms mixed up - that should have said I would also say that containers should not be able to increase their ratings above average except via combat. Gotcha. The truth is, you're the first person I can remember complaining about this. And it does strike me as perfectly realistic that the performance of staff officers of a division or corps would be impacted by that of staff officers higher up the chain of command (e.g., over time the divisional staff officers get better at working with those at army headquarters). So I'm not sure there's need for a change in this rule. As always, I welcome additional input.

rook749 -> RE: Could someone explain this for me? (1/10/2007 10:25:12 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: Gil R. Gotcha. The truth is, you're the first person I can remember complaining about this. And it does strike me as perfectly realistic that the performance of staff officers of a division or corps would be impacted by that of staff officers higher up the chain of command (e.g., over time the divisional staff officers get better at working with those at army headquarters). So I'm not sure there's need for a change in this rule. As always, I welcome additional input. I have no problem with Containers being able to raise their level to above average outside of combat. It should be much easier however for containers that are below average to increase to average then for average containers to become goor or excellant. Rook

Berkut -> RE: Could someone explain this for me? (1/10/2007 10:29:55 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: Gil R. quote: ORIGINAL: Berkut Sorry Gil, I got my terms mixed up - that should have said I would also say that containers should not be able to increase their ratings above average except via combat. Gotcha. The truth is, you're the first person I can remember complaining about this. And it does strike me as perfectly realistic that the performance of staff officers of a division or corps would be impacted by that of staff officers higher up the chain of command (e.g., over time the divisional staff officers get better at working with those at army headquarters). So I'm not sure there's need for a change in this rule. As always, I welcome additional input. Two reasons, IMO. 1. Realism. It is prefectly realistic that subordinate units are not going to train up to the level of their superiors - their superiors might be good at leading troops, but poor at training, or vice versa. 2. The bigger reason is that it simply multiplies the effect of a great high level staff. Take two armies, one on each side. The random generator says that Army #1 has a command rating of 3 and Army 2 a rating of 7.Now, obviously the one is better than the other, and that means that others things being equal, the 7 will perform a little better than the 3. That is fine. But in the current model, not only will the 7 perform better, over time every single subordinate unit underneath it will tend towards 7 as well! While the other armies untis tend towards the 3, or at least will not rise much above that. So now, not only does one army have a advantrage because it has a higher command rating, the ENTIRE army ends up with a much better command rating, which is now a VERY large advantage, indeed, this advantage likely exclipses the basic advantage. I would guess that this would mean that if you create an Army, and it does not have a above average staff ratings, you should just disband it and ry again, since a low rating will cap the subordinates. I am guessing I am the first person complaining about it because I am the first person to see the extreme result mentioned in the first post. But even if the result is not that extreme, the issue still exists. The way that Armies train everyone under them to hteir level is a problem...especially if there is code that makes it more likely for one side to see exceptional army level containers. From a strictly game play perspective, I don't much like the idea that I should play the "create an army, check its stats, delete, repeat until I get one that is decent" game, since these ratings will be eventually shared by all the subordinates.

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